U.S. district Judge Lucy Koh handed down two orders on Wednesday dealing with the first Apple v. Samsung California court trial, one denying Apple's motion to recover $16 million in attorney fees from Samsung and another releasing a $2.6 million bond posted to block sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1.

According to Judge Koh's ruling, Apple sought to recover from Samsung attorneys' fees related to trade dress claims argued as part of the first Apple v. Samsung jury trial in California.

During the proceedings, which ended in an Apple win, the Cupertino company asserted a total of four trade dress -- product design -- claims against Samsung, three dealing with the iPhone and one covering the iPad/iPad 2. The jury found 6 of 17 Samsung smartphones diluted Apple's iPhone properties, but did not reach the same conclusion for IP associated with the tablets.

In rundown of prior court actions, Judge Koh notes the jury found willfulness in Samsung's dilution of Apple's trade dress for the iPhone, which Apple presented during the trial as:

A rectangular product with four evenly rounded corners;

A flat, clear surface covering the front of the product;

A display screen under the clear surface;

Under the clear surface, substantial neutral (black or white) borders above and below the display screen and narrower neutral borders on either side of the screen;

When the device is on, a matrix of colorful square icons with evenly rounded corners within the display screen; and

When the device is on, a bottom dock of colorful square icons with evenly rounded corners set off from the other icons in the display, which does not change as other pages of the user interface are viewed.

Samsung, however, also presented evidence that the iPhone's design was utilitarian and in some ways based on function, leading the company to believe "its actions were not prohibited" by the Lanham Act, the main U.S. statute regarding trademarks and advertising.

Under the Lanham Act, Apple needed to prove that the case was "exceptional" to garner attorneys' fees, otherwise the decision would be left to Judge Koh.

In its discretion, based on the Court's evaluation of the totality of the circumstances, the Court concludes that this is not an exceptional case that "stands out from others with respect to the substantive strength of a party's litigating position." [...] Rather, Samsung raised several reasonable defenses to Apple's trade dress dilution claims, establishing that Samsung "might have reasonably thought that its proposed usage was not barred by the statute."

As for the $2.6 million bond, the order to release comes after both companies withdrew motions to enforce an injunction against the three-year-old Galaxy Tab 10.1 earlier this week. Apple posted the bond in 2012, though no action was taken due to the lengthy appeals process.

Wednesday's news comes after Apple and Samsung agreed to drop all non-U.S. patent disputes in early August, leaving the ongoing appeals from California in play.

So Apple ultimately won, but that woman judge denies Apple from even recovering attorney fees? It's not about the amount, sixteen million is mere pennies to Apple, it's about the principle, and the evil and criminal Samsung should be ordered to pay up, since they lost. Isn't that how court cases usually goes? The loser pays attorney fees.

What the hell kind of justice is that, and what the hell kind of a judge is she?

This is a total joke, a travesty of justice and I suspect that there is possibly some corruption and conflict of interest behind these outrageous and shameful decisions.

She's not actually from either North or South Korea. If you were racially White and born in the US, would you view yourself English or European? If you were racially Black would you consider yourself African? Beyond that there's the false assumption that ethnicity aligns someone with a corporation based on the location of that company's headquarters, which is in itself another weird form of nationalism. I was tempted to give your post a snippy response, but I'm a patient enough guy to teach the few knuckleheads a little basic logic.

1) Oh, wow, you have an image. I guess that settles it until someone invents some sort of shop for photos¡ The technology that must be needed to stick a 4 digit year above a doctored is straight out of science-fiction¡

2) That middle image is from the official iPhone release. Note the hand and how it's the exact same one used for the Prada. Also note that device wasn't sold in 2006, didn't have multi-touch which means no pinch, zoom, or all the wonderful aspects of the iPhone HW and SW that made it a success and the LG Prada nothing.

3) Try doing some research, not jumping to some Android site to look at pictures.

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

Thing is, Samsung has been a lot more successful after it stopped copying Apple...

[image]

That's unit sales, not profit. Samsung's guidance for this next quarter is low, if I recall correctly. They are saying that a drop in smartphone sales are to blame. Remember that the Galaxy line is mostly made up of cheap devices.

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

Now that Samsung has shown that any company with enough money and a good team of lawyers can steal, copy, and violate any patent it wants and get away with it, I guess we can expect to see Xiaomi do the same and enter the US market with guns a'blazing.

So Apple ultimately won, but that woman judge denies Apple from even recovering attorney fees? It's not about the amount, sixteen million is mere pennies to Apple, it's about the principle, and the evil and criminal Samsung should be ordered to pay up, since they lost. Isn't that how court cases usually goes? The loser pays attorney fees.

Not in the U.S. While 'loser pays' sounds fair in principle, with our inclination toward litigation here it could be a disaster. Patent troll companies would now shift gears and form 'lawyer troll' companies. They get a team of the top lawyers and go around suing anything and everything.

Your dog gets loose and poops in their yard. They sue you. The judge rules you are at fault, and since this is such a trivial stupid thing your only punishment is that you have to go clean the poop up. However..... since 'loser pays' the legal fees, you also have to pay the legal fees of $618,381 that their legal team accrued. Case obviously exaggerated to show the point.

There are special circumstances where you could recoup legal fees, but they are usually so rigidly defined any one 'miss' precludes you from them.